Hawks blast way to victory over Edmonton

EDMONTON, Alberta - The Blackhawks proved Tuesday night that a goalie can't stop what he can't see.

Getting 2 goals on long slap shots through screens against a goaltender playing extremely well, the Hawks won for the third time in the first four stops on their long road trip, turning back the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 at Rexall Place.

Oilers goalie Dwayne Roloson was terrific, stopping 38 of 41 shots, but he never saw blasts from Cam Barker and Dave Bolland in the second period as the Hawks wiped out a 1-0 deficit.

"That's the plan against any team," Barker said. "If the goalie's not seeing it, pucks are going to go in. He made a lot of big saves."

At one point early in the second period the Hawks were outshooting the Oilers 22-8 but only in a 1-1 tie.

"You've got to stay patient; you can't get frustrated," Bolland said.

Barker's power-play goal at 3:06 of the second went through a Jonathan Toews screen while Bolland's rocket at 16:12 was in traffic provided by Andrew Ladd.

"(Roloson) played great," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "We had a real good first period and we were down 1-0, but we liked the way we played and we had the puck a lot.

"We didn't have as much traffic in that first as we would liked, but it resulted in the first 2 goals."

All 18 Hawks skaters had at least 1 shot on goal.

"We wanted to be nice and sound coming into this game and keep things simple," Barker said. "It doesn't always have to be the pretty play, but we wanted to get pucks to the net, and I felt we did a pretty good job."

The Hawks outshot the Oilers 13-7 in the first period but trailed 1-0 on a fluke goal by Ethan Moreau at 4:48, a flip from behind the net that hit Brian Campbell then went in off the back of goalie Cristobal Huet.

Huet was sharp after that, showing there probably really is no reason for Quenneville to go away from alternating his goaltenders at this point with the Hawks sitting at 28-13-8 and fourth in the Western Conference.

"We played very well tonight and without (Roloson), I think it would have been a higher score," Huet said. "He kept them in the game."

Roloson was the best player on the ice in the first period and continued his strong play into the second before Barker and Bolland connected.

The Hawks got their final goal midway through the third when Martin Havlat beat Roloson on a wraparound.

Barker admitted the team still was riding the momentum of Saturday's big win in San Jose.

"I thought we went in there and played extremely hard and the guys were ready for that game," Barker said. "It shows when we're willing to play like that we can beat anyone.

"This was a different game than we played against San Jose, but we brought a lot of the same aspects, get pucks on net and play physical. It was just a good road game."

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